Sunday morning talking heads

AllahpunditPosted at 8:01 am on April 2, 2017

The “get” of the day belongs to “Meet the Press,” which will preview nuclear war in the Senate over Neil Gorsuch by sitting down with the two main combatants. Mitch McConnell will be the lead guest followed by Chuck Schumer. As of Friday evening, Gorsuch had 54 votes in the bank with 10 Democrats (including one Democratic-leaning independent) still undecided: Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Dianne Feinstein of California, Angus King of Maine, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Warner of Virginia. Cardin, Coons, Feinstein, Leahy, and Menendez all hail from deep blue states and thus face no electoral pressure to let Gorsuch through; if each of them joins the filibuster, he’ll be stuck at 59 votes maximum. Does McConnell have assurances from all 52 members of his caucus that they’re prepared to go nuclear in that eventuality? Probably, yeah — but he might not say so explicitly this morning. The more it looks like the GOP is prepared to blow up a Democratic filibuster no matter how the 10 holdouts vote, the less reason those holdouts have to vote yes on cloture and risk pissing off their liberal base.

Elsewhere this morning, Nikki Haley will appear on “This Week” and “Face the Nation” to discuss her new job of “kicking anti-Semites in the UN to the curb” and to clarify just how hawkish or dovish the Trump administration’s policy towards Russia will be. Interestingly, “This Week” has lined up a rebuttal interview with the Kremlin: Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov will follow Haley. Not quite as chilly as the McConnell/Schumer dynamic, but close!

If none of that grabs you, Democrat Adam Schiff will be on “State of the Union” to accuse Devin Nunes of all manner of skullduggery. The full line-up is at the AP.